Advertising In Publications

( Originally Published 1902 )

Daily Papers.-For retailers the best advertising is in daily papers. The returns are prompt. They can be easily traced. Within twenty-four hours from the time a merchant inserts his advertisement in his local paper he can tell whether or not it paid. If he has a good store system and watches his advertising closely he can tell almost to a certainty the exact returns from this advertising.

Daily papers so far supersede all other advertising mediums for retailers that many merchants spend the full per cent of their advertising appropriation in their columns.

Advertisements for daily newspapers should be set up at least a day in advance of their publication. Final price and other corrections can be made in the final proofs. But it is advisable to have these corrections made in advance of this and so obviate any possibility of errors creeping in the advertisements. When advertisements are ordered for insertion it is usually when the advertising and composing staffs of the daily are at their busiest (and the force of a daily newspaper is a pretty busy crowd at all times.) To make corrections at the last hours—when pressure is at its highest—is obviously poor judgment.

To the local advertiser of any degree and description the daily newspaper may be set down, in nine cases out of ten, as being his chief publicity prop. It covers his field reaches the people he wishes to reach and through it he can tell his story more economically than through any other medium.

The mail order advertiser wishing to advertise in a certain town, county, State or territory can do so through the daily paper which not only covers the town from whence it is issued, but also a large section of the country outside of it.

The general advertiser wishing to cover certain sections of the country will find the same rule operating in his case. Many a general advertiser covers a certain portion of the country at a time, and covers it well, with the assistance of daily papers. When that portion is well covered he proceeds to cover other portions in the same way and presently he finds that his goods are on sale all over the continent.

Weekly Papers.—Country weekly papers are excellent for retailers located in their towns and vicinities. Where the weekly alone is published it is a splendid advertising medium. As it has the entire advertising field of its section to itself its value to the local, general and mail order advertiser is most obvious.

When there is a daily published in the same town the weekly is also a most desirable advertising medium, as the daily and weekly together make a strong advertising combination for the advertiser to cultivate.

The country weekly is the most highly prized and closely read of all papers published. It's chronicles of local doings are scanned by every member of the family. It is an essential institution in its neighborhood—at times, far beyond its neighborhood-and for this reason alone is a most desirable advertising medium. What it lacks in quantity as a medium it there-fore makes up in quality.

Great weekly papers like the Youth's Companion, the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, Harper's Weekly, etc., are so generally recognized and generously used as advertising mediums by mail order and general advertisers that it is almost unnecessary to here say anything regarding them. The question of the use of each is best determined by the advertiser him-self after considering the article he wishes to sell, its price, the people he wishes to sell it to and the advertising rates as well as the quality and the quantity of the weekly's circulation. There is no question but that such papers are more carefully read and preserved than daily papers.

Magazines.-The general and mail order advertiser must consider the, use of magazines. They go everywhere, are care-fully read and long kept, have enormous circulations and exercise a tremendous influence not only from an advertising viewpoint, but also from every point of view in moulding human thought. The retail or local advertiser is the one advertiser who never bothers about magazine advertising, unless he has a mail order adjunct to his business, through which he wishes to make the world at large his customers.

One point about magazine advertising is that the advertiser must get his copy in early. The daily or country weekly advertising rule of getting in copy a day or two in advance of publication must be quite forgotten in dealing with magazines, which demand copy long in advance of publication.

The date of closing of forms vary with the various magazines. Some magazines are excellent for high class articles others for popular priced goods and others for very cheap goods. When an advertiser considers magazine advertising he considers, as a matter of course, the character of its circulation as' well as the character of his goods. He makes one fit the other.

Religious and Other Class Publications.-To the advertiser wishing to reach a certain class of people he can generally pick his choice of mediums from several papers appealing to that class. About every religious denomonation has its paper or papers. About every political party has its paper or papers. Medical men have papers carefully edited for their sole perusal. And so on through almost every line of conviction and endeavor.

Without attempting to enter upon a dissertation regarding the worth of the various mediums of this nature it can be said

that they are extremely valuable advertising mediums to business men with articles that appeal to certain classes.

Trade Papers.—Manufacturers, wholesalers, importers, brokers, commission merchants and those live business men who wish to make their business known in their respective fields find trade paper advertising invaluable. The great advertising incomes that some trade papers enjoy is the best proof of this. Trade papers have great circulations and exercise wide influences upon the retail, wholesale, manufacturing and importing lines—upon the specific lines of action that they cover.